The Difference Between Mentoring & Coaching

Each Friday, RPS highlights five popular news stories from the world of training professionals. Visit our blog each week to see which stories were trending amongst your industry peers.

ASTDMentoring Versus Coaching: What’s the Difference? by Annabelle Reitman & Sylvia Ramirez Benatti
Sometimes people use the words “mentoring” and “coaching” interchangeably, but they do not describe the same type of working relationship. Both share basic organizational goals including employee learning and development that leads to peak performance, and the realization of full potential. However, the definition, focus, role, approach, and tools of each are different. An organization is not required to choose between mentoring and coaching. Each one enhances an individual’s ability to contribute to the organization’s goals. Consider how these two activities can fulfill the expectations of individuals, managers, and senior-level executives, while simultaneously accomplishing the organization’s employee development and succession planning goals.

CLO MediaTaking Control of On-the-Job Learning by Frank Kalman
If learning leaders are putting their efforts into areas thought to require the most legwork and planning — the 10 and 20 percent, respectively — something’s off; they should be the smallest slices of the learning pie. But what is their role in crafting the on-the-job experiences believed to account for the bulk of the outcomes they originally set out to achieve? To some learning leaders, achieving an ideal percentage of on-the-job learning means maximizing formal programs, with the hope that daily job content acts as the necessary reinforcement to close the learning loop.

Training JournalThe more virtual we get, the more human we need to be by Matt Bolton-Alarcon
First of all, let’s deal with the value of virtual teams. Overall I believe that they are a good thing. They allow for more flexibility and are less costly than ones which require lots of face-to-face meetings. You can also call and arrange meetings much faster with a virtual team than with traditional teams, which is extremely valuable when you’re up against deadlines. There have been many studies that show that teams made up of people from diverse cultural backgrounds will create stronger ideas than a bunch of people who look the same and, by and large, think the same as well.

Psychology TodayThe Stress Disconnect Between Management and Employees by Victor Lipman
A study earlier this year from Towers Watson examined the sources of stress at work and found that managers and employees view the problem very differently. The study is called Workforce Stress: The Employer/Employee Disconnect, and involved approximately 5,000 workers at companies with over 1,000 employees. If there’s a substantive “disconnect” and lack of understanding between the two groups, a fair question is: Can management effectively address the problem of workplace stress if it doesn’t fully understand what the problem is?

Business InsiderThe Unexpected Trait That Can Make A Good Leader Great by Jessica Stillman
In the popular imagination, successful leaders are not shy flowers. Confidence and bluster — sometimes in excess — are more likely to be associated with executives and other top business leaders. But, it turns out, what we imagine we want from a leader and what actually makes one effective in real life are often at odds. Now a new study has confirmed what other researchers have been what other researchers have been insisting — quieter, less remarked on traits determine the success of those at the top more often than highly visible qualities like charm and conviction.

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